FIA Motorsport Games to Retain Nations Cup GT Format

The GT Cup segment of the inaugural FIA Motorsport Games taking place later this year will retain the format established by the FIA GT Nations Cup in 2018.

Further details of the event, which is being held at Vallelunga on Oct. 31-Nov. 1, were revealed during a joint SRO and FIA press conference at Spa on Thursday.

It included information on the race and timetable layouts, and clarified that GT3 cars will return in the nation-on-nation competition which Turkey won last year.

Each country can be represented by a two-driver Pro-Am crew composed of either Silver-Bronze or Bronze-Bronze categorization.

The event will involve two 80-minute Free Practice sessions, followed by a 40-minute qualifying segment split into two halves.

A pair of qualifying races will then decide the grid for the final race on the Sunday, where one of the six event gold medals will be decided.

SRO founder and CEO Stephane Ratel suggested that retaining the GT segment’s Pro-Am format was a logical step to encourage a wider spread of national motorsport organizations to take part.

“The Motorsport Games were built on the success of the Nations Cup held last year in Bahrain,” he said.

“The fact that we limited it to silver and bronze drivers meant many nations became competitive. If we had done it with only Pro drivers, other countries would have been less well represented.

“In Bahrain, at some point, I think six of the eight leading cars were all from Asia and South America, and that’s really what made it such a success.

“Now, we can go to the next step which is creating this multi-category motorsport games.”

The Motorsport Games is also set to contain competitions for TCR, Formula 4, drift and karting machinery, as well as an e-sports competition.

Each national sporting authority (ASN) will be responsible for identifying and selecting their drivers for each discipline, based on a set of criteria including results in domestic series, international racing experience and the resources of the operating team. 

As previously announced, Rome will act as the ‘host city’, while an opening ceremony is planned to take place at Piazza del Popolo before parading the cars to the Colosseum.